Iran promises to revenge the death of a member of the Revolutionary Guards assassinated this weekend in Tehran. On Sunday May 22, Colonel Sayyad Khodaï was shot and killed by two motorcyclists, who were able to flee. Decryption with Jonathan Piron, Belgian historian and specialist in Iran for the Group for Information and Research on Peace and Security (GRIP) and Etopia.
RFI: What do we know about Colonel Sayaad Khodaï, assassinated in Tehran?
Jonathan Piron: He was a senior officer. Iranian media portray him as a “sanctuary defender,” a term for Iranians fighting in Syria. This assassination is symbolic and very special in a difficult context, that of the relaunch of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear and whether or not the Revolutionary Guards are on the US list of terrorist organizations. They have been there registered during the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States, and negotiations are underway to withdraw them, as part of the talks aimed at resuscitating the Iran nuclear deal.
Is it the body of the Revolutionary Guards that is targeted through this assassination? In January 2020, it was the commander of the Quds Force of the Guardians, General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated during an American raid in Iraq.
The Revolutionary Guards are a very powerful organization, alongside the regular army. They are present in Syria and Iraq. Militarily, they control the Iranian ballistic program. They are also a political and economic force. Politically, they are present behind the scenes and can have their say in the electoral process as well as in the appointment of ambassadors. Economically, they are present in a whole series of conglomerates, especially in the construction sector. This body is a fundamental and very conservative actor within the Islamic Republic.
This is not the first time that Iranian personalities have been victims of mysterious assassinations.
In the past, it was mainly nuclear engineers who had been murdered. We remember that in 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh had been killed by a remote-controlled robot. This time, it was a senior member of the Pasdaran (the Revolutionary Guards) who was killed in Tehran. At the time, Iran accused Israel.
In recent years, assassinations of nuclear scientists were aimed at slowing down Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iran today enriches its uranium to levels never reached and has developed its expertise despite these assassinations. So the one that has just been committed is more of a political assassination, which could jeopardize the current efforts to revive the nuclear agreement: the European diplomat Enrique Mora was recently in Tehran, where the Qatar is also trying to relaunch contacts.
►Read again: In Iran, a colonel of the Revolutionary Guards shot dead in Tehran